The sales tax holiday was in full exemptive bloom. Tax-free, for a limited time, were back-to-school items for the kiddies such as school supplies, clothes, shoes, computers, and, er, standalone personal digital assistants up to $1,500. Because little Austin simply must have a Pepper Pad so as not to disrupt his umbilical connection to the Web.

In honor of this holiday, I did what any civic-minded person would do -- I went shopping.

Normally, I hate shopping -- not least of all because of the omni-directional color and clamor. Having reached the age where most women become invisible, I care more about comfort than showing off new clothes. I spend a whole two minutes dressing in the morning, with office attire conveniently based on black shoes and black pants. New clothes are finally purchased when I've almost worn out the old ones, maybe. When I was young and skinny, I enjoyed shopping for clothes, and I dressed creatively (if wearing PVC slicked tight across one's braless nipples is creative). Now... well, I hate to shop, okay?

For the first time, I went to the huge whoop-de-do designer outlet mall that has always been only forty minutes from my house. It is indeed huge. Discomfortingly huge. No matter. I walk fast; I shop fast; I know what I want; and I know they probably don't have it. I charted a course for the Timberland outlet and set my credit card on stun.

In an attempt to make the shopping activity bearable, I tuned out the people. This was successful for four and a half minutes. The first sound to shatter my bubble was the adolescent whine. While the adolescent whine bears a striking resemblance to the kindergarten whine, it differs in tone and word choice. The very young child is cognizant of his smaller size and lack of power. His or her whine fits into the category of simple supplication. Conversely, the adolescent resides in an alternate reality of misperceived power and unbridled entitlement. His or her whine is akin to the call of the wild boar, astonishing in its range and sheer gall. This whine fits into the category of demand.

One such whine sliced through the din of the Nike Factory Store like an otherworldly wail. "You never let me have anything I want! The blue ones are sick. The ones you picked are fugly-ass for old people. Why can't I have anything good?"

I'm fairly certain that the overgrown yard ape was expressing his preference for the blue shoes and not extending an opinion regarding their poor physical health. Tacking "ass" to the portmanteau word "fugly" was grammatically superfluous, but I digress. The point is that the kid was dissin' his mama.

In another store, an unfortunate mother was attempting to please a teen who looked as if she'd been sucking unripe quince through a cocktail straw. "Look, honey, this one is only a hundred dollars," said the mother, hopefully.

"Oh, please, that looks like some blah thing you would wear," sneered the quince-sucking adolescent, teetering to a slouch in her kitten heels. "When are we going to a real store?" Here was the commonly known indolent, insolent cashier species in larval form.

I stared at mother and daughter, appalled. I couldn't help it. You know what I'm going to say next, right? But it's true. My mother would have backhanded me for much less. The boy with the shoes, the girl with the clothes, and other whining teenagers I'd heard on this field trip were obviously and ungratefully -- say it with me -- spoiled rotten.

Looking around the store, I could see that many of us females were around a certain age, somewhere between barely old enough to be that kid's mother and plenty old enough to be that kid's mother. The kid's actual mother was in need of some assistance, I thought. We should band together, I thought. I should make the call right here in this store to those women who keep revising their definition of "middle age" as they approach and/or fall face first into a noxious, steaming pile of midlife. We should rise up against the societal attitude that dismisses and insults us for involuntarily committing the cultural crime of aging and turns our own kids against us.

We could begin our movement by condemning whoever happens to be handy at the moment. We may be tired, but we're not too tired to corner the little snot in the tiny tank top with "Princess" glitter on it and make her an example. We could surround her, jerk out her ear buds, and force her to listen to and look upon her future. Once she had been sufficiently terrified by lived-in skin and the odd chin hair, we would remind her that her efficient metabolism and dewy epidermis is also nothing more than age. It's simply her turn now, and she doesn't have long to take advantage of it. "Be nice to us because eventually you will be us," we would chant ominously.

But you know what happens when you incite a mob, even a mob of moms in Easy Strides -- someone would go too far. Someone would make a marginally innocent young girl pay for the shallow priorities of an entire nation. Someone would cause a coroner to spend hours carefully extracting bits of pink cell phone from a young girl's recently pert ass.

Then I guess we'd all go to prison, being discount shoppers without the means to buy the best defense. I don't think I'd especially like prison. While wearing the same natty little jumpsuit every day would further simplify dressing to a thought-free enterprise, I really prefer to pee in private.

I backed down before I even stood up. I felt guilty for imagining harming a little girl. I smiled at her on the way out the door. Princess's lip curled all the way up to her nose stud.

I'd had about all the fluorescent shopping amusement I could stand. It was time to go home, relax in silence, read a book, light some Bacardi 151. Perhaps I would return to the designer outlet big top in a year or so as I’d ended up purchasing the only new clothing item I really needed -- black harness motorcycle boots.